The Bear’s Matty Matheson in Jimmy Kimmel interview shares ‘scary’ situation
Chef-turned-actor Matty Matheson shared in a recent late-night talk show interview how one of the events in “The Bear” has indeed happened in his real life.
Matheson, who is one of the stars of the Emmy-award winning show, sat down with Jimmy Kimmel earlier this week where he not only discussed his recent accolades and “Mathod” acting, but also delved into some of the things that have happened while working at one of his restaurants in Toronto (one of which may or may not have inspired a particular scene in “The Bear”).
Midway through the interview, Kimmel asked Matheson if it is at all possible for a chef to get locked inside the walk-in refrigerator, as it was something that happened to Jeremy Allen-White’s character on the show.
Speaking from experience, Matheson affirmed it can indeed happen and recounted the “scary” situation he had seen during a restaurant service once.
“One of our pastry chefs – some walk-ins have actual freezers within the walk-ins – and she went in to get some butter out of the freezer, and she was locked down there for like 45 minutes,” Matheson said.
“There was a moment where I was kind of talking about these moments of different things that happen at restaurants […] and uh, we got her out.”
As for himself personally, Matheson said he has had “many” accidents at work and brought up an incident that happened at his downtown Toronto restaurant, Parts & Labour, which closed after a decade.
It was two weeks before the Queen Street West restaurant opened, and Matheson said he was making egg-salad sandwiches as a staff meal. As he was pouring the boiled eggs into a colander, the chef explained he splashed himself a bit with the hot water.
“I took a step back and I flipped the pot upside-down, and I shot a bunch of boiling water down my leg into my [boot],” Matheson said, adding he ripped the boot off.
“I had wool socks on – I live in Canada – I ripped everything off, and it ripped a lot of the skin off my foot.”
To remedy the problem, Matheson prepared himself an ice-bath for his foot so he could continue with the remainder of service.
After he was done, the chef took himself to the hospital and the attending doctor asked when this happened.
“You have like third degree burns on your whole foot,” Matheson said, recounting what the doctor’s diagnosis was.
“I just had to keep going here for a bit, because I was just like, you know, people need salads and stuff.”
The third season of “The Bear” is currently in production and is expected to air this summer.
